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TIME WILL HEAL, some people say. The prospect of that looks bleak, however, for the people affected by the world’s worst nuclear disaster.
In the five years since the triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, at least 100,000 people remain displaced; 80 people have committed (...)

TOKYO (Kyodo) — Around 267,000 people are still living in temporary housing and other makeshift residences nationwide as Japan is set to commemorate three years since the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that devastated the northeast of the country and triggered an unprecedented nuclear crisis. (...)

Temp housing occupancy still runs high 1,000 days after 3/11 quake
SENDAI (Kyodo) — Makeshift housing units set up after the March 11, 2011 quake and tsunami was still marking an occupancy rate of over 80 percent in the three hardest-hit prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima as the 1,000th (...)

At least 13 municipalities in Chiba, Ibaraki and Tochigi prefectures have sent critical comments to the Reconstruction Agency for its basic policy to limit the scope of assistance to only areas in Fukushima Prefecture affected by the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant.
The 13 (...)

The number of deaths in Fukushima Prefecture caused mainly by stress from the nuclear disaster reached 1,539 at the end of August, almost equaling the 1,599 fatalities due directly to the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, the Mainichi Shimbun has learned.
In addition, bereaved (...)

TOKYO (Kyodo) — Google Inc. on Wednesday released via its Street View service pictures that were taken recently in parts of four Pacific coastal prefectures hit by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster, with some ready for comparison with photos taken before and just after the disaster. (...)

Amongst elderly people from seven towns and villages evacuated due to the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant disaster, an additional 46 percent are certified as needing living assistance than before the disaster, it has been learned from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW).
The (...)

A government agency is set to designate certain municipalities in Fukushima Prefecture eligible for special assistance relating to the ongoing nuclear crisis in a draft policy framework without establishing criteria based on radiation levels, it has been learned.
The latest revelations have (...)

The Reconstruction Agency secretly agreed with other government agencies to postpone assistance to nuclear disaster victims until after the July 21 House of Councillors election, sources close to the government have revealed.
According to the sources, the Reconstruction Agency and other (...)

The mortality rate of elderly residents of nursing-care facilities in Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture, jumped nearly 2.7 times after they evacuated the city in the days following the March 11, 2011, start of the nuclear disaster, due to poor living conditions, a study found.
The study, (...)

One part of that region of northeastern Honshu comprises districts not directly affected by that day’s Great East Japan Earthquake or the huge tsunami it triggered. A second is the coastal areas that were inundated or destroyed. The third is the towns and villages in Fukushima Prefecture (...)

The Great East Japan Disaster on 11 March 2011 caused death to an incredible number of people with many more still missing, destroyed a huge amount of properties, and displaced numerous communities. On top of this there were gender-insensitive and gender-unequal evacuations, relief and (...)

Roughly 30 percent of householders aged under 60 who have been sheltering in Tokyo since evacuating from their quake-hit hometowns are unemployed, a Tokyo Metropolitan Government survey has shown.
The recession, difficulties finding suitable jobs and uncertainty over whether evacuees will be (...)

FUKUSHIMA — The town of Okuma, which entirely falls within the exclusion zone around the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, is planning to establish an “out of town” community as residents’ forced evacuations are expected to last a long time.
On March 16, the town’s reconstruction (...)

IITATE, Fukushima — Before the outbreak of the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant in March last year, the residents of this village rich in natural resources used to live in harmony.
Now, the Iitate Municipal Government is forging ahead with a decontamination plan, hoping to (...)

Abstract: The mercury discharged into the sea by the Chisso factory in Minamata, and the radiation released by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, are not entirely different “accidents,” although one was the result of a “natural disaster” and one not. Minamata offers hints of future (...)

According to Aileen Mioko Smith, who together with her late husband, the photographer Eugene Smith, drew the world’s attention to one of Japan’s most far-reaching pollution-caused diseases, the ongoing Fukushima nuclear crisis and Minamata disease have many things in common.
“Inequality,” said (...)

FUKUSHIMA, Japan (Kyodo) — The last of the facilities used as evacuation shelters following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, and the ensuing nuclear crisis in the three hard-hit prefectures in northeastern Japan closed Thursday in the city of Fukushima, the Fukushima prefectural government (...)

IITATE, Fukushima — Frustration, deteriorating health, and a growing feeling of unfair treatment are being reported by residents who have evacuated from this village, a local government survey has found.
A survey by the Iitate village government obtained responses from some 1,743 people who (...)

MORIOKA (Kyodo) — More than six out of every 10 families who have been living in makeshift homes or housing units run by the Employment Development Association in Iwate Prefecture since last year’s March 11 earthquake-tsunami disaster are low-income earners with an annual income of 3 million yen (...)